Hate the terms black and white

[Whatisinaword]

The terms white and black were created hundreds of years ago to describe differences in skin colour and superiority. A lot of people identify with being black or white, but there are not many people who actually have black or white skin. The terms also don't cover people who have heritage from multiple continents.

I think everyone should be able to identify however they want and this is in no way criticising the BLM movement, but I am uncomfortable that everyone should be expected to accept the terms white and black and be identified as such by others.

[bojkaboom]

I quite agree with OP though I use the terms white, black, brown, PoC, etc. I use what I'm told is the 'correct' term.

I truly appreciate other PPs mention of different cultures and ethnic groups, such an interesting read that really got me thinking and have sparked some interesting discussions. So I'm thankful for this thread because of it.

[Mamaof2cuties]

@Adoptthisdogornot

Brown and pink in this house. White and Black are loaded social constructs, and my children haven't learnt them yet.

I think you nailed it.

[Mamaof2cuties]

Plan, thanks I understand what you mean.

I do like srownbkingirl describes. Outside Africa, I'm African etc. There are so many ethnicities worldwide that no one will be able to identify which part of the world others are from if in another continent we go down to that level. Like I didn't know "Han" is an ethnicity. Maybe that's a good thing. Europeans tend to identify themselves by their country in my experience more than others.

Breastfeeding, you are indeed correct. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way in the real world. Hopefully one day soon.

[PlanDeRaccordement]

Oh sorry Pothole. Didn’t mean to misunderstand you.

[SharonasCorona]

I’m South Asian and I find a bit weird that people generally describe someone as black or white but not brown. E.g. if someone asks who you spoke to, you wouldn’t say ‘she was brown’, but would say ‘she was white’ or ‘she was black’.

[Donkeytail]

When dd was younger she was with me when I was buying foundation. She asked me why I wasn't buying pink foundation to match my skin, she wasn't wrong I am pretty pink!

[Adoptthisdogornot]

Brown and pink in this house. White and Black are loaded social constructs, and my children haven't learnt them yet.

[Lifeisabeach09]

@srownbkingirl, I found your post really interesting. And very inline with the Nigerian women I work with, who cannot relate to the experiences of Afro-Caribbean Brits or Americans.
Worldwide, Whites (Caucasians) are not homogeneous, I don't know why people assume Blacks (Afro-Caribbean) are also.
But, yes, I agree with you, OP, and the PPs who says it is polarising and simplistic.

[Breastfeedingworries]

🎶It doesn’t matter if your black or white! 🎶

[PotholeParadise]

We've read it entirely differently, yes.

I'm not reading the OP's suggestion as that people should be able to pick untrue identities though. I'm reading it as suggesting people should feel able to pick from a more diverse colour palette in order to identify as their literal skin colour.

[PlanDeRaccordement]

Pothole
I think you and I have read the OP entirely differently. To me, she is not saying that people should be able to identify differently from what they are (which you have got from her post). Or that they should even pick a random skin colour and call themselves truffle or whatever.

She is saying that the categories of white and black (skin colour) are a flawed way to identify people and since it is a construct invented a few hundred years ago, why even keep identifying race by skin colour?

Perhaps she will be along to clarify.

[PlanDeRaccordement]

This fixation on skin colour being the primary way to identify is only a few hundred years old and was first proposed by 19thc European scientists. The very system and act of identifying race by skin colour is the root of modern day racism. It’s pervaded everything.

We dismantle it, we dismantle racism that is based on skin colour.
Also, by identifying by ethnicity we’d have probably hundreds of thousands of ethnicities. Racism is based on prejudice.
Right now with the planet divided into white, brown, black there is an unavoidable chance that someone white,brown or black will do you harm and then you prejudge every white, brown, or black person you see after that. Maybe even become racist to all white, brown or black people. Opportunity for racism is ever present and so it is more likely to flourish and so, is it any surprise racism is such a big problem today?

But if people started thinking in terms of ethnicity, it’s much harder to develop prejudice and then allow it to become racism. You’d have to be harmed by more than one Han, or more than one Bantu, or more than one Gaelic Highlander or more than one Catalan. The more races we have (and we have more than you can count), the less opportunity for racism because you aren’t lumping different peoples together and calling them a monolith of white, brown, black.

[PotholeParadise]

@PlanDeRaccordement

All that hundreds of different identities would do would be to fragment the BLM movement into a competition of which shade of skin has it worst

Hasn’t that already happened? The BLM = Black Lives Matter so clearly, it would not even exist if it were not for the fact that dark skin is suffering the worst from police brutality.

So hundreds of different identities cannot cause a competition that has already happened and been decided.

If that’s your only reason not to...then there is no reason not to allow people to identify by their ethnicity instead of by their skin colour.

I am not aware of people categorising themselves as Hazelnut Truffle, Sesame Seed or Intense Chestnut on tumblr, much less any tiny ignored HazelnutTruffleLivesMatter protests, so as far as I know, it hasn't happened.

Currently, people are quite clear on whether they should be collecting under the BLM banner as a person directly impacted by that strand of racism, or whether they're standing under the banner as an ally.

I don't think it's up to me to 'allow' people to identify by their ethnicity or up to anyone to tell people not to identify by their ethnicity. Not sure what it has to do with the OP's concerns about people being miscategorised as black when they're not literally black, either.

[PlanDeRaccordement]

All that hundreds of different identities would do would be to fragment the BLM movement into a competition of which shade of skin has it worst

Hasn’t that already happened? The BLM = Black Lives Matter so clearly, it would not even exist if it were not for the fact that dark skin is suffering the worst from police brutality.

So hundreds of different identities cannot cause a competition that has already happened and been decided.

If that’s your only reason not to...then there is no reason not to allow people to identify by their ethnicity instead of by their skin colour.

[PotholeParadise]

As other people have said, this has little to do with identity.

I think you are ignoring that if you are a victim of racism, it is something that other people do to you.

Every single person in America could choose their own new racial identity right this minute according to a paint chart and emblazon it on their facebook profile if they wanted and it would make zero difference to their chances of being killed by the police.

Corrupt, violent, racist police officers do not ask if you identify as black, brown, hazelnut truffle (Dulux paint colour), or pale coral. They simply see a black person or mixed race person or they don't, and that shapes how they treat you.

All that hundreds of different identities would do would be to fragment the BLM movement into a competition of which shade of skin has it worst. Oh, and it would give bored white teens something to do on tumblr as they tried to work out which shade of peach paint they were and which shade won the oppression olympics.

[PlanDeRaccordement]

Srownbking

Yes, exactly. I do the same thing. Just say “Asian” when away from Asia, because it’s short answer and also because it is the commonly used and understood term for “my kind” here in Europe. If I answered even “Chinese” people would then assume I was not a French citizen born here but an Immigrant. Life is hard enough without adding the extra of xenophobia.

[PlanDeRaccordement]

Plan, is ethnicity not about African, Asian, Caucasian etc?

Mama, no they’re not offensive terms, but they are not terms for ethnicity. They are geographically derived terms- Africa, Asia, Caucasus Mountain Range (divides Europe from Asia), America, Australian, etc

But the world has had so many migrations that there is no such thing as one ethnicity per continent. And many ethnicities straddle more than one geographical area or continent.

[srownbkingirl]

I can agree with @PlanDeRaccordement that classing people by ethnicity as Asian, African, etc is also grouping people as one, when different countries in a continent have different cultures, etc. There's no one African culture or language. Even in my country, we don't have one culture or language.

However, identifying as African when it comes to ethnicity is when I'm outside Africa because it's closest to who I am and my culture. Within Africa and specifically in my country, ethnicity means something different, which is the different ethnic groups people belong to within the country and this is what people mainly identify as (like Plan mentioned about 'Han'). I, too would prefer the actual ethnic group if it came down to it because it will be the most accurate.

[Cadent]

This is why it’s such a patronising idea and emphasises how privileged white people are to think it’s so easy and simple to just identify as you wish. It’s not.

Agreed.

[Russellbrandshair]

.People patently cannot 'identify however they want'. If a black man walks around saying he 'identifies' as white, he is still at a higher risk of being arrested or shot. If a black woman comes to a hospital saying she identifies as light beige, she's still more likely to die in labour or have a stillborn child

Exactly. This is why it’s such a patronising idea and emphasises how privileged white people are to think it’s so easy and simple to just identify as you wish. It’s not.

[Mamaof2cuties]

Plan, is ethnicity not about African, Asian, Caucasian etc? Or what do you mean?

Would never have thought these terms as (potentially) offensive.

[PlanDeRaccordement]

I’d rather we identify ourselves primarily by ethnicity than skin colour.
Skin colour is too broad to capture our diversity- White, Brown, Black
Same with the old bad terms of- Caucasian/Caucasoid, Asian, African, and Amerindian

So, I’d rather identify as “Han”
I don’t like being lumped together with Japanese, or Filipinos, or Indians. They have very different experiences compared to mine. Lumping ethnicities together results in all kinds of misinformed assumptions being made.

[srownbkingirl]

Like a milk-dunked rich tea with a fever

[srownbkingirl]

I agree about the person of colour. There's something that's made the rounds many years ago (in the time of bbm) arguing that the person of colour concept fits white people more because they change colours depending on situations. Brown people stay the same. IIRC I think it's meant in a derogatory way towards white people though (because of their use of the words 'coloured people') but I wouldn't use it that way.

I've had this discussion often with my close friends of many years (1 is black, 2 are white, 2 are mixed white and black) and we use brown, beige and pink to describe each other.

[SistemaAddict]

FWIW, she is black.